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Squillaci set to sign for Arsenal on 3 year deal

Written by Chris Wheatley

Sebastien Squillaci will become Arsenal’s third signing of the summer shortly — after it was announced that he would fly to London tonight ahead of a medical at the club’s London Colney training ground tomorrow morning.

The 30-year-old’s departure from Sevilla was revealed on their official website, with a 3-year deal in the region of £5.3 million being touted by the Spanish media.

Squillaci was withdrawn from the Sevilla squad that faced Braga in the first leg of the Champions League play-off tie on Wednesday as the Spanish club did not want to jeopardise the prospect of a deal by rendering him cup-tied in Europe.

Manager Arsene Wenger earlier admitted that the Gunners are in need for more defensive options after a summer which has seen William Gallas, Sol Campbell, Philippe Senderos and Mikael Silvestre leave the club.

Leave your thoughts on the imminent signing of Squllaci in the comments section below.

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Let’s be rational about this, is he good enough to be first choice alongside TV5??? I can’t recall him being first choice at Sevilla and he is/was behind Gallas and one or two others in the pecking order for the French team – which is not much to write home about. Oh and he is hardly a towering centre-back at what, 6ft 1ins.

A great signing, I always rated him as a great defender who knows also how to manage the other side of the pitch & score goals.
I would suggest AW to offload Clichy to Real Madrid & get the under-rated Gago. He is perfect for our needs. Clichy is a good player but we have Gibbs, Traore & Vermaelen/Eboue could also function as left backs. Then we only need a Keeper & the treble is on sight mates!

i doubt he’ll buy an attacking player. He has young JW now. We need cover at DM more the AM, expecially now Frimpong is out for the season. The main reason he said he didnt buy a DM was because of the emergance of Frimpong, now he’s out, we’ll need a new signing. Eastmond is not ready and Diaby is not a DM

good solid signing with plenty of top level experience in the CL and in la liga etc. Now just a keeper at least and we’re set! would be nice to see perhaps another cb or a midfielder in due to djourou being a perma crock and frimpong being out for the season (since wenger said he was considering getting a midfielder in til he saw how good frimpong was in pre season) ..

I saw him in the Norway v France game and wondered who that guy was, since I’d never heard of him and he had a great game, much better than Mexes. I think he’ll come good.
Now I’m hoping for Stekelenburg, Suarez, Gago and Cahill, and I’ll be happy. And of course, van Wiel. Then we’ll be home and dry

@david, he was first choice for seville alongside another frenchman Julien Escudé. he should have been first choice alongside gallas in the wc, but the insane french managaer played a left back ( abidal) alongside gallas, we all saw how that went

he was supposed to start last wednesday for seville, after he withdrew, the manager had to play fazio in his place.

excellent defender, an organiser, a leader and experienced. looking at the ages of vermalen koscielny and johan, this signing is spot on for our needs.

Gourcouff left out of starting line up tonight for Bordeaux, rumours are he’s looking to move before the 31st after falling out with Bordeaux president! I’ve got a sneaky feeling we are looking at getting him in! Watch this space!

Martin , he’s already said he will not move to another French club, he wants a new challenge in a bigger championship, city will not go for him now they’ve got milner, so I would not be suprised if we go in for him late!

afc kings, lyon play CL football, they have a competitive team and will increase his wages. Bordeaux lost their manager and big name players and no foreign team is interested in gourcouff at his current price, lyon makes sense. french media quoted lyon’s president tonight confirming his interest

@AFC, he is overall a good player for me, he is really playing fine for their standard..his distribution is superb but i think he dribbles a lot and tends to run so much with the ball which is not the arsenal way…he was just substituted minutes ago

people.. you can forget about gourcouff.. we are loaded with atacking players.. Fabregas, Nasri, Rosicky, Vela, Wilshere, Arshavin, Walcott..
we will sign this guy Squillaci and GK …Schwarzer and thats it.

we got an unknown centre beck last year i believe that was thomas vermalaen went and turned out to be one of arsene wengers best signings his made to date, let’s just hope he is just as good of signing? only a keeper and who knows maybe even another player to strenghen what looks like a promising team

@David, i watch most of the games through internet streaming…..i rely so much on sopcast….and i watch tru http://www.myp2p.eu….with that, i can watch any match i want to watch free…its so fast and clear……n the streaming does not cut

david please, this guy is a class player and a great signing. he is tough, right footed, plenty tall enough and experienced. not sure what else you’d want. he will step right in ahead of kos (who showed himself capable in his own right) and will hopefully do well.

id still like to see a keeper signing and one more other player (defender or dcm please). then we are set.

It is a good signing he is a very tough player and also very experienced that is what we need. Yes he is not the best defender in the world but i’ve got a feeling that he will do the job just fine…

Now schwarzer or steklenburg cause we really need a goalkeeper, I think we should have 5 CB and 2 DM so we have 5 CB now if you count song but I really hope that we get a dm cover cause diaby nor denilson cant play there….what about gago, diarra or matiudi

This guy is 30 years old and he gets a 3 year contract?? I’m sure he’s good but so is Gallas who wanted 2 years! As did Pires! Same with that decrepit Silvestre who got 2 years when we signed him at age 30.

Why the hypocrisy? This policy makes no sense, refuse 2 year contracts to players who are already at the club, then give long contracts to the people we also have to pay TRANSFER FEES for, when the current players leave in disgust.

I prefer Squilaci(30) than Ciani(26), v hv now Vermaleen and Koscielny who are vy young, so we need someone who is abt 30 yrs old to be their, tutor, to provide them experience, and most important, are willing to back them up. u see, i dont think that a 26 yrs old player is willing to play as reserve. So far, i m sticking with Vermaleen and Koscielny as our best starting 11 for CB. NOW my dear MR WENGER!!! Pls sign 1 goalkeeper! n Asenal is going to win at least 1 silverware!!!

THIS IS GOOD NEWS, I NOW FEEL WENGER SHOULD GO FOR A NEW DEF MID AND A KEEPER AND ANOTHER CENTRE BACK.
MICEAL CIANI CB OR ONE OF THE BOYS IN THE PRIEMIER LEAGUE
ANY HARD NUT DM DATS STRONG AND DNT MESS AROUND
STEKLENBERG I FEEL IS IDEAL, GOOD AGE AND VERY EXPERIENCED DID WELL IN THE WORLD CUP

The people complaining about how Pires never got more than a 1 year deal but Squillaci is – Pires was about 33 if I remember correctly and Squillaci is only 30 (a good age for a defender due to experience). Depending on how good he is (in particular his speed and positioning), he still has at least 4 years left in him to perform at the top level.

I also think Vermaelen and Koscienly will start. Though for 5.3 million he will be good to have in reserve along with Djourou Nordviet and Song when needed. We need a quality keeper though maarten stekelenburg is cup tied for the champions league now. But we defently need a keeper. We will win nothing with out a quality 1.
We need cover in DM. Real Mardid have opening said they are willing to Lass Diarra, Mahamadou Diarra and Gago. We could get one of them on the cheap and they would only be cover for song.
But over all Id just be happy to get a world class keeper. Dont think Schwarzer is much better than what we have.

Ok fine, we’ve another defender.Though as pple here have mentioned, we still need another GK to really compete, I still think even more than these players, we need to (1) LEARN TO DEFEND AS A TEAM/INDIVIDUALS (2)ALTER OUR FORMATION TO SUIT TOP OPPOSITION IN THE EPL and in CL.
Players like Arshavin, Diaby, etc, still need to improve their defensive inputs especially when this was what affected us in the big games in the last 2 seasons.If we have problems with players like Drogba, Rooney, Messi, etc, why not adopt a strategy to ‘keep them quiet’? We are still suspect from set pieces and who will bet that Delap will fancy his long throws against us again? Why must same errors cost us every season?

I expect that like we saw with most teams (Spain, Holland, Germany and Brazil) at the WC, we’ll adjust our midfield to an inverted pyramid and have a 4-TWO-3-1 (against bigger teams and away from home) and a 4-TWO-1-3 (against lesser teams).

My emphasis is on the TWO sitting in front of the Back Four.Due to our attacking style, we get caught on a counter a lot especially when we play Man Utd. and Chelsea. I believe the consistency of this DOUBLE SHIELD in front of our back four and those who play it especially in the big matches will determine our season, once again.

The ideal is to have Song and Diaby play there with specific instructions for Diaby to ‘SIT BACK’ rather than forage forward, attempting to dribble thru three or four players only to lose the ball and we are in trouble!

Forgive my attempt to ‘play coach’ here but I agree with pressing higher up the pitch like Barcelona does efficiently but they arent playing week-in week-out in the EPL where teams sit deep in their own half and just hoof the ball forward to a ‘target man’ and this costs us points most times especially at the Emirates.

To counter this, I believe the way is not just to press higher up the pitch with the likes of RvP and Chamakh starting up front, with Arshavin and Walcott dropping deep to help their fullbacks to ensure they arent isolated, but to have Cesc and the TWO behind him, battling for the ball to break down attacks.

This would work better if one of the TWO(Song) sits back to clean up behind the other (Diaby) who harries and haunts down the ball carrier for the other team.Frimpong would have been the best at this due to his boundless energy and no-nonsense approach to marking the one in possession of the ball. This way, there are always 3 (DM & 2 CBs) left behind to clean up what ‘escapes’ those higher up the pitch.

Maybe fantasy has overtaken me, but I believe we’ll concede less of those needless ‘odd goals’ if we learn to defend as a team and have those 2 protecting the Back Four.

Great to have a tall experienced defender , but what about a new Goalkeeper? We need Schwartzer badly me thinks…and our Boss is saying no more signings this window…is he serious??? Hope by God he isn’t!

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